1907-1908
... May she meet
With long-lost faces through the endless days;
Find youth again, and life with love replete,
In amethystine meadows where she strays;
And hear celestial music, strangely sweet,
By the still waters of the lilied ways.--LONGFELLOW.
... A Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See Christ stand!
--BROWNING.
Break, ties that bind me to this world of sense,
Break, now, and loose me on the upper air;
Those skies are blue; and that far dome more fair
With prophecy of some divine, intense,
Undreamed-of rapture. Ah, from thence
I catch a music that my soul would snare
With its strange sweetness; and I seem aware.
Of Life that waits to crown this life's suspense.--L.C.M.
In any thought of Mrs. Moulton's life, through which gleamed always
the double thread of friendship and song, certain words of the Rev.
Dr. Ames associate themselves,--that all our time here is God's time,
"which we measure off by days and years, that we are, even now,
continually with Him in the great Forever, embosomed in the infinite
power and purity." In Mrs. Moulton's own words, it is only
From life to Life
that we pass.
In retrospective glance, how beautiful are these closing months of her
sojourn on earth! They were filled to the last with love and
friendship, and sweet thought, Mrs. Moulton's health was constantly
failing from this winter of 1907 until she passed through the
"Gleaming Gates" in August of 1908, but so gently imperceptible was
the decline that even through this winter she half planned to go to
London again in the spring. In a little meditation on the nature of
life which T.P. O'Connor induced her to write for his journal about
this time, under the caption of "My Faith and My Works," she said:
"There must be always 'the still, sad music of
humanity'--the expression of the mind that foresees, of the
heart that aches with foreknowledge. One would not ignore
the gladness of the dawn, the strong splendor of the mid-day
sun; but, all the same, the shadows lengthen, and the day
wears late.
"And yet the dawn comes again after the night; and one has
faith--or is it hope rather than faith?--that the new world
which swims into the ken of the spirit to whom Death gives
wings, may be fairer even than the dear familiar
earth--that, somewhere, somehow, we may find again the
long-lost; or meet the long-desired, the un-found, who
forever evaded our reach in this mocking sphere, where we
have never been quite at home, because, after all, we are
but travellers, and this is but our hostelry, and not our
permanent abode."
"My best reward has been the friendships that my slight work has won
for me," she had said; and the assurance of these did not fail her to
the end.
In the article just quoted she said of her work:
"I have written many times more prose than verse, but it is
my verse which is most absolutely _me_, and for which I
would rather that you should care. Some critics assert that
the sonnet is an artificial form of expression. Is it? I
only know that no other seems to me so intimate--in no other
can I so sincerely utter the heart's cry of despair or of
longing--the soul's aspiration toward that which is
eternal.
"Am I a realist? I think I am; but who was it who said that
the sky is not less real than the mud?"
The death of her old friend, Mr. Aldrich, greatly moved her, and in
her diary for March 20, 1907, she records:
"Indoors all day; an awful wind storm, and the day was made
sad by the news in the morning's paper of T.B. Aldrich's
death yesterday, in the late afternoon. Oh, how sad death
seems. Aldrich was seventy last November. How soon we, his
contemporaries, shall all be gone. His death seems to darken
everything."
Two days later she writes:
"Went to the funeral services of T.B. Aldrich, at Arlington
Street Church. The services, the music, and Mr.
Frothingham's reading, were most impressive and
beautiful.... In the evening came Mr. Stedman to see me. His
visit was a real pleasure, I had not seen him for so long."
This must have been the last meeting between Mrs. Moulton and Mr.
Stedman after their almost life-long friendship.
To Mrs. Aldrich she wrote:
_Mrs. Moulton to Mrs. Aldrich_
28 RUTLAND SQUARE,
March 30, 1907.
DEAR MRS. ALDRICH: I cannot tell you how my talk with you a
few days ago brought the long past back to me. How I wish I
could put into words a picture of your poet as I saw him
first. I was in New York for a visit, and was invited for an
afternoon to an out-of-town place, where a poet-friend and
his wife were staying. Other interesting people were there,
but _the_ one I remember was T.B.A. His poems had charmed
me, and to me he was not only their author, but their
embodiment. Had it been otherwise, I should have felt bereft
of an ideal; but he was all I had imagined and more. I saw
him alive with the splendor of youth, rich, even then, in
achievement, and richer still in hope and dreams,--a
combination of knight and poet. He escorted me back to New
York, I remember, and the charm of his presence and his
conversation still lingers in my memory. Ever since then I
have kept in touch with his work and loved it. His
personality attracted every one who met him, and his
generous kindness and appreciation were a joy to those who
sought his sympathy.
I remember the pleasure with which my poet-friend, Frederic
Lawrence Knowles, told me of a kind invitation to call on
Mr. Aldrich, and the yet more enthusiastic delight with
which he afterward described the interview. He found his
gracious and graceful host to be so wise, sympathetic,
hopeful, and suggestive, all that he had hoped for and more.
I think every young poet who had the happiness of meeting
him could bear similar testimony.
I saw him last on the twelfth of January, 1907, so short a
time before his death, and yet he seemed so alert and alive,
so interesting, so entirely what he was when I knew him
first that one could not have dreamed that the end was near.
The only consolation for a loss that will be so widely felt
is in the legacy he has left to the world of immortal charm
and beauty,--the work that will not die.
Yours most sincerely,
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
The last sonnet which Mrs. Moulton wrote was for the birthday of Mrs.
Howe.
TO JULIA WARD HOWE
ON HER EIGHTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY, MAY 27, 1907
Youth is thy gift--the youth that baffles Time,
And smiles derisively at vanished years.
Since the long past the present more endears,
And life but ripens in its golden prime,
Who knows to what proud heights thou still may'st climb--
What summoning call thy listening spirit hears--
What triumphs wait, ere conquering death appears--
What magic beauty thou may'st lend to rhyme?
Sovereign of Love and May, we kiss the hand
Such noble work has wrought, and add our bays
To those with which the world has crowned thy brow:
Thy subjects we, in this the happy land,
Thy presence gladdens, and thy gracious ways
Enchant--Queen of the Long-Ago and Now.
During the summer Mrs. Moulton was for the most part in her
morning-room, surrounded by her favorite books, her papers, her
letters, attended by the faithful Katy, and remembered constantly with
flowers and tokens from friends. She cherished until quite midsummer
the hope of joining the Schaefers, who were in Europe; but in reply to
their urgent wish to return and be with her, she begged that they
would not cut short their trip, as it would distress her to feel that
they were in Boston during the hot weather. To a friend who remained
in town and who saw her every day, she said: "It would make me really
ill to have Florence and Will come into this hot town. I should only
feel how uncomfortable they must be, dear as they are to wish to come
for my sake. With letters and the cable, we are in touch all the
time."
It was, on the whole, a pleasant season, although she was often
uncomfortable if not actually in pain. Friends urged her to come into
the country, but to this she did not feel equal. Mrs. Spofford had met
with an accident, but before the summer was over was able to resume
her visits; and more than anything else her companionship brightened
the days.
The autumn brought back the accustomed circle, and in October came the
following letter from Dr. Ames:
_Dr. Ames to Mrs. Moulton_
12 CHESTNUT ST., BOSTON,
October 24, 1907.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I am somewhat foot-fast; but very far from
indifferent, and you will never know how often your name is
called as I tell my rosary beads.
I wonder if you find comfort, as I often do, in the thought
that all true and honorable human friendship is
representative of its inspiring source, and that we should
not thus care for each other, and wish each other's highest
welfare, if our hearts were not in receptive touch with a
Heart still greater, purer, and more loving? Can you rest in
the imperfect good will of your friends and yet distrust its
Origin and Fountain?
I appreciate and share your perplexity over the world's
"Vast glooms of woe and sin." But, when most weary and
heavy-laden with all our common burden of sorrow and shame,
I find some measure of strength and peace in the example and
spirit of One who knew and felt it all, One who could gather
into a heart of boundless compassion all the blind and
struggling multitudes, and could yet trust all the more
fully to the Father's love for all, because He felt that
love in His own.
The problem of evil--my evil, yours, everybody's--was not
solved by Him with any reasoning; it was simply met and
overmatched by faith which saw all finite things held in the
Infinite, as all the stars are held in space.
Did sin abound? Grace did much more abound. To that
superabounding grace I commit all our needy souls. I know no
other resource. I need no other.
Not all the sins that we have wrought
So much His tender mercies grieve
As that unkind, injurious thought
That He's not willing to forgive.
As for unanswered questions,--let them rest. They rest while
you sleep; let them rest while you wake. In opening a window
to look out, we shall let in the blessed light of heaven.
How many hearts have found this true! Did any ever find it
untrue? To escape from self-attention is the sure cure of
morbid, self-consuming thoughts and moods....
While you and I are waiting for the sunset gun, what use can
we make of our afternoon except to welcome the sacred
horizontal light, which shows us how our resources and
energies can best be applied to the welfare of others? If in
considering our remaining opportunities and duties, we may
partly forget our own private troubles, that will be
salvation, will it not? We may be sure that all the
happiness we try to secure for others will return to
ourselves redoubled. You would say this to another, why not
say it insistently to yourself.
Faithfully yours,
CHARLES GORDON AMES.
In November her daughter and son-in-law arrived, and from that time
did not leave her. There were happy days in which Mrs. Moulton was
able to drive, although these were rare, and as the winter wore on she
was less and less able to see friends. The last letter she ever wrote,
save for some brief words to Mrs. Spofford, written when she could
with difficulty hold a pen, was one to Archdeacon Wilberforce, and
even this was left unfinished. It was entirely concerned with
religious questionings.
The entries in her diary became few and irregular. There is a pathetic
beauty in the fact that the latest complete record, in the early
summer of 1908, is a mention of a visit from "dear Hal," Mrs.
Spofford. The very last was simply the words "Florence and Will,"
which fitly closed the record which had extended over more than a
quarter of a century.
Hardly a month before her death Colonel Higginson wrote to her that he
felt that in her execution she excelled all other American
women-poets. She had questioned him of death, and he replied: "Your
question touches depths. I never in my life felt any fear of death, as
such. I never think of my friends as buried."
The transition came on Monday, August 10, 1908. On the Friday before
she had seemed better, and Mrs. Spofford, who was with her on that
day, remarked afterward that "It was delightful to hear her repeat her
lyric, 'Roses.'"
Roses that briefly live,
Joy is your dower;
Blest be the fates that give
One perfect hour;
For, though too soon you die,
In your dust glows
Something the passer-by
Knows was a rose.
"Velvet-soft in this," Mrs. Spofford continued, "her voice had a
ringing gayety whose strange undertone was sorrow when reciting, 'Bend
Low, O Dusky Night.'"
On Saturday she seemed still her old self, but on Sunday afternoon she
became unconscious, and on the morning following came release. So
peaceful was the transition that to the watchers it was as if she only
passed from sleep into a deeper peace. The lines of the late Father
Tabb might almost seem to have been written to describe that fitting
end:
Death seemed afraid to wake her,
For traversing the deep
When hence he came to take her,
He kept her fast asleep.
And happy in her dreaming
Of many a risk to run,
She woke with rapture beaming,
To find the voyage done.
The funeral service was held three days later. Friends had sent masses
of flowers, and among them she rested, never more beautiful, with only
peace on the still face. An incident slight, but at such a moment
touching, marked the removal of the casket from the house. As it was
borne down the steps a superb golden butterfly flew on just before it,
as if it were a visible symbol of the rich spirit now "loosed upon the
air." The committal was at Mount Auburn, where her grave is beside
that of Mr. Moulton. A beautiful Celtic cross marks the spot where
rests all that was mortal of one of the sweetest and most genuine
singers of all her century.
[Illustration: LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON'S GRAVE IN MOUNT AUBURN,
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
_Page 275_]
The letters of sympathy sent to Mrs. Schaefer were many and
spontaneous, full of individual feeling and of a sense of personal
loss on the part of the writers. "I shall always feel grateful for the
privilege of Mrs. Moulton's friendship," wrote the Rev. Albert B.
Shields, then rector of the Church of the Redeemer. "One of the
kindest friends I ever had," wrote Professor Evans, of Tufts College;
"no one that I have known had a greater capacity than she for making
close friends." "No one loved your mother as I did," was the word from
Coulson Kernahan, "and her passing leaves me lonelier and sadder than
I can say." Mrs. Margaret Deland spoke of her "nature so generous, so
full of the appreciation of beauty, and of such unfailing human
kindness." Mrs. Spofford, so long and so closely her friend, said
simply: "I miss her more and more as the days go by. I miss her
sympathy, her comradeship.... She was inspiringly good and dear to me;
and her love will go with me to the last."
* * * * *
Such extracts might be multiplied, but they are not needed. The
affection she felt and inspired must live in the hearts of her
friends, and such letters are almost too tender and intimate to be put
into cold print.
Mrs. John Lane, now of London, but in former years known in Boston as
Miss Eichberg, one of the intimates of 28 Rutland Square, has written
the following reminiscences of Mrs. Moulton, between whom and herself
long existed a warm friendship:
"An anecdote told by Mrs. Moulton about Thomas Carlyle and
his wife has been going the rounds of the press since her
death, coming thus to my notice. I only partially recognize
it as one she had often told me. The true version of it is
as follows: Mrs. Moulton had it from her friend, Lady
Ashburton, who was also a friend of Carlyle and his wife. It
seems that Lady Ashburton had invited the Carlyles to visit
her. There was a large house-party of people congenial to
the great man, and one day after dinner Lady Ashburton
prevailed on Carlyle to read aloud some passages from the
'French Revolution.' From reading, Carlyle, carried away by
his subject, continued a discourse independent of his own
work, which was so brilliant and eloquent that his hearers
were profoundly impressed. After he had ceased and it was
time for all to separate for the night, they went, in turn,
to express to him their appreciation. The only person who
did not do this was his wife, and as Carlyle stood as if
expectant, Lady Ashburton said rather impulsively to Mrs.
Carlyle: 'Why don't you speak to him? Your praise means more
to him than that of all the rest, and only see how he has
moved them!' 'Ah, yes,' replied Mrs. Carlyle, 'but they
don't have to live with him.'"
"I first met Mrs. Moulton in London in the early eighties. I
had a letter of introduction to her from a common Boston
friend. She was then in the beginning of her London success,
knowing everybody in the literary world worth knowing, and
extending her simple and charming hospitality to very great
people indeed. To go to her Fridays was always to meet men
and women whose names are famous on two continents. To a
young girl as I was, brought up with a deep veneration for
all things literary in England, it was a wonderful
opportunity to come face to face, through her kindness,
with the curious phases of art and literature of that
period.
"These movements were the outcome of the pre-Raphaelite, the
outward aspects of that erratic and distinguished society,
and its artificial simplicity. It was enough to impress any
one coming from so conventional a city as Boston. Perhaps
the deepest impression made on me was by Philip Bourke
Marston, for I remember how Mrs. Moulton brought him to see
us, and my father, Julius Eichberg, played for him on the
violin. Never shall I forget the picture as he sat there
listening, his head supported by his hand, and the various
expressions evoked by the music passing over his face.
"It was undoubtedly through Mrs. Moulton that the younger
English poets of those earlier days won American
recognition. Many of these who have now an assured place in
literature were first known in America through her
introduction. As I remember now, it was she who first
unfolded to me the splendid, stately perfection and the
profound thought of William Watson, and I can still hear her
lovely voice as she recited to me that wonderful poem of
his, 'World-Strangeness.' It was she who first read to me
'The Ballad of a Nun,' by John Davidson, and that moving
and tragic poem by Rosamond Marriott, '_Le Mauvais Larron_.'
"I remember going with Mrs. Moulton to Miss Ingelow's. Once
I remember, when James Russell Lowell was first accredited
Minister to the Court of St. James, and had just arrived in
London, we met him at Miss Ingelow's. He was evidently a
stranger to the hostess and to all her guests, and I recall
his talking to her, holding in his hand a cup of tea which
he evidently did not want. Miss Ingelow, in a bonnet and
shawl, with a lace veil over her face (it was a garden
party), seemed to be stricken with a kind of English shyness
which made her rather unresponsive, so that he went away
without having been introduced to any one, while every one
looked on and wanted to know him.
"I remember an enthusiastic American girl who was introduced
to Thomas Hardy by Mrs. Moulton, at one of her Fridays, who
exclaimed, 'O Mr. Hardy, to meet you makes this a red letter
day for me'; whereupon the quiet, reserved, great man looked
at her in speechless alarm and fled. It was at Mrs.
Moulton's that I first became acquainted with the editor of
the famous 'Yellow Book.' He was Henry Harland, and its
publisher was John Lane. I recall Mrs. Moulton saying 'Now
that I have introduced the editor to you I must also
introduce the publisher.'
"It was in the 'Yellow Book' that the most distinguished of
the younger English writers first won their spurs, and that
erratic genius, Aubrey Beardsley, made his undying mark on
the black and white art, not only of England, but of the
world. It was all these younger men whose talent Mrs.
Moulton made known to the American public.
"In the first years of my friendship with Mrs. Moulton, when
she still wrote fiction, she once told me of the plot of a
story which had been told to her by Philip Marston. It was a
wonderful plot and Mr. Marston wished her to use it. As she
told me the details in her vivid way, I was profoundly
impressed as if it had been a story of De Maupassant. She
seemed to have no great desire to use it, although she was,
for the moment, fired by my young enthusiasm for it. If ever
I envied, as only a young literary aspirant can, it was Mrs.
Moulton then as the ownership of that plot, and I told her
so. 'If I do not use it,' she said, 'I will give it to you.'
So years passed, and in my mind still lingered the
remembrance of that wonderful plot which, so far, Mrs.
Moulton had not used. One evening we were at the theatre
together, and as we sat talking, between the acts, she
suddenly reverted to the plot. 'I have decided,' she said,
'that I shall never use it, and I will give it to you.' I do
not think that any gift ever made me so happy; it was a
happiness that only a writer of stories can appreciate. It
seemed to me as if I could not find words to express my
gratitude for her great generosity. I know my delight made
her happy. It was so a part of her to be happy in another's
happiness. For days and weeks afterward I only lived in that
wonderful plot--but to this day the wonderful plot has not
been used."
The numbers of autograph copies of books presented to Mrs. Moulton by
their authors she left, by memorandum, to the Boston Public Library,
with the request that Professor Arlo Bates make the selection. These
now form a memorial collection, each volume marked by a book-plate
bearing an engraved portrait of Mrs. Moulton. Professor Bates has
written an account of this collection, which, as it has not before
been published, may be included here as not only interesting from the
inscriptions which it contains, but as indicating the range and
variety of Mrs. Moulton's literary friendships.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF BOOK PLATE FROM THE MEMORIAL COLLECTION OF
THE BOOKS OF LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
_Page 282_]
THE MOULTON COLLECTION
"From the library of Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton it has been my
task--sombre yet grateful--to select a collection of autographed books
and first editions to be given to the Public Library of Boston as a
Memorial. Between eight and nine hundred volumes were found worthy,
and of these no small number are of rarity and much interest. Mrs.
Moulton had not only the books presented to her personally by the
writers, but from the library of Philip Bourke Marston she inherited
many others enriched by the autographs of famous men and women. The
list is too long to be given in anything like entirety, but it
included Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Mathilde Blind, Frederick von
Bodenstedt, Charles Bradlaugh, Alice Brown, Madison Cawein, F.B.
Money-Coutts, John Davidson, Austin Dobson, W.H. Drummond, Eugene
Field, Richard Garnett, Richard Watson Gilder, Robert Grant, Edmund
Gosse, Louise Imogen Guiney, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, H. Rider
Haggard, John Hay, William Ernest Henley, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lord
Houghton, Henry James, Amy Levy, Lady Lindsay, Frederick Locker, James
Russell Lowell, Stéphane Mallarmé, Joaquin Miller, George Moore,
Felix Moscheles, the Hon. Roden Noel, Thomas Nelson Page, John Payne,
Nora Perry, Mr. and Mrs. James B. Piatt, James Whitcomb Riley, Amélie
Rives, C.G.D. Roberts, Christina Rossetti, William Sharp, Harriet
Prescott Spofford, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Algernon Charles
Swinburne, Bayard Taylor, John T. Trowbridge, Mrs. Humphry Ward,
William Watson, Theodore Watts-Dunton, John Greenleaf Whittier, and
Mary Wilkins.
"The exact number of authors represented has not been counted, but
probably the autographed volumes, of which there are about six
hundred, do not contain more than a fifth of that number of well-known
names. Some signatures are by unknown authors who sent their books to
Mrs. Moulton because of her prominence; and in a limited number of
cases such have been thrown out as obviously not worthy of a place in
the collection. The variety of the personal acquaintances among
distinguished writers, however, illustrates very strikingly the
breadth of Mrs. Moulton's sympathies and the remarkable extent to
which she kept in touch with current literature. In not a few cases,
moreover, the inscriptions show how often her encouragement or wise
counsel had been helpful to the writer. In 'The White Sail,' Miss
Guiney writes: 'To Louise Chandler Moulton from her lover and debtor';
Charles Bradlaugh, in 'The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick':
'From the author to his critic'; F.B. Money-Coutts, in 'King Arthur':
'A poor return for her kind interest'; John Davidson, in 'New
Ballads': 'From her obliged friend.' Others of this sort might be
quoted, and while dedicatory inscriptions are not always to be taken
too seriously, no one could know Mrs. Moulton and her helpful
kindliness without realizing to how many writers her sympathetic
criticism and judicious advice had been of marked value. C.W. Dalmon,
in a copy of the limited edition of 'Song-Favors' writes: 'To Mrs.
Louise Chandler Moulton for her kindness' sake, and for the sake of
"Philip, our King"; and the remembrance of that kindness in so many
hearts is to Mrs. Moulton a lasting monument.'
"From the many and varied inscriptions in these books I have selected
a handful which seem to me interesting, and which Mrs. Moulton's
friends will, I hope, find so. In going over the library I was struck
with the range in time which these autographs cover. It gave a feeling
of being in touch with a past almost that of our grandmothers' to
come upon Le Tellier's '_L'Histoire Ancienne_' with the inscription:
'Louise Chandler Moulton from Madame Emma Willard, Troy Female
Seminary, May 30th, 1856'; or upon 'Lucy Howard's Journal,' bearing
upon the fly-leaf: 'Mrs. Ellen Louise Moulton, with the love of her
friend, L.H. Sigourney, Hartford, Conn't. Christmas, 1857.' The latter
volume is dated by the publishers 1858, so that the trick of making
the title-page state its age with feminine inexactness is less recent
than is generally supposed. Who to-day knows anything about Madame
Willard, or has other remembrance of Mrs. Sigourney than that of
seeing her name attached to moralizing selections in the reading-books
of our remote youth?
"Older still than these, although the fact that Mr. Trowbridge has
happily been with us to the present time makes him seem less a figure
of the past, are the inscriptions in the first and second series of
Emerson's 'Essays': 'Ella Louise from Paul Creyton, April 10th, 1854';
'To Ellen Louise from J.T.T., April 10th, 1854.' To the same year
belongs a copy of 'Mrs. Partington,' in which is written: 'To my
granddaughter, Ellen Louise, Ruth Partington by B.P. Shillaber.' I
confess to something of a wistful feeling at these reminders of a
time in the midyears of a century already dead, when I was in the
nursery and 'Ellen Louise,' 'Paul Creyton,' and 'Mrs. Partington' were
the literary stars glimmering out with yet ungauged power in the sky
where Emerson and Whittier and Longfellow were the fixed and shining
lights.
"The autographed books, for the most part, however, belong to the
years since Mrs. Moulton had won her place as the leading woman-poet
of America. Her intimate connection with the literary world in England
has brought it about that almost as many English as American names are
found written on the fly-leaves of presentation copies. Largely, of
course, the sentiments are simple expressions of regard or admiration,
and it has not seemed worth while to include these here. Of those
which are more full or less conventional the following are examples:
Oswald Crawfurd has written in his 'Portugal': 'My friends consider
this my best work, and if they are right it is the fittest present I
can give to Mrs. Chandler Moulton, the best friend this year, 1887,
has brought me.' In the 1896 edition of 'Dawn' the author says: 'To
Mrs. Chandler Moulton with the kind regards of H. Rider Haggard. P.S.
Her appreciation of this old "three-decker," which he remembers
working very hard over, has pleased its antiquated author very much
indeed, as he imagined that nowadays it only possessed a prehistoric
interest.' In Lloyd Mifflin's 'The Fields of Dawn' is written: 'You
who know so well--by having so often encountered them yourself--the
almost insuperable difficulties of the sonnet form, will be among the
first to pardon the many short-comings of this little volume'; and in
'The Slopes of Parnassus' are quoted with graceful modesty the lines
of Tennyson:
"For though its faults were thick as dust
In vacant chambers, I could trust
Your kindness.
Nothing could be more graceful than the inscription of Arthur
Sherburne Hardy: 'If the _salut_ Passe Rose sang to Queen Hildegarde
(p. 354) had not already been verified for you, I should repeat it
here. Faithfully yours, etc.' The _salut_, as those will remember who
are as fond of 'Passe Rose' as I am, was:
"God give thee joy,
And great honor.
In her 'Brownies and Boggles' Miss Guiney has written:
"'Of Brownyes and of Boggles fulle is this Beuk.
GAWAIN DOUGLAS, 1474-1522.
For the "Fairy" Godmother, from her chronicler of elves. L.I.G.' And
in 'Goose-Quill Papers': 'To your most gracious hands these weeds and
tares.' Clyde Fitch, in a copy of 'The Knighting of the Twins,'
mounted from newspaper slips and bound by the author: 'Sweet
singer--friendship is a blue, blue sky,--fair, ethereal, interminable,
with an horizon made goldy with the sun of love. And your
friendship--is a sky still more precious, a heavenly one.' Harriet
Prescott Spofford inscribes 'An Inheritance,' 'My dear Louise, with
the love of her Hal,' and in turn Mrs. Moulton herself writes in a
volume of Mrs. Spofford's 'Poems': 'To Philip Bourke Marston I give
these poems of a woman whom I love.' Mrs. Clara Erskine Clement in
'Angels in Art': 'Alas! My pen was not "dropped from an angel's wing,"
but such things as it writ I send thee with my love.' In a copy of
'Berries of the Briar' I found with amused surprise, as I had not seen
it for twenty years or so: 'Louise Chandler Moulton with Christmas
greeting from The Briar, 1886.
"'Small worth claims my book
Save the greeting it brings you.
I pray you o'erlook
Small worth. Claims my book
But that you deign to brook
Its intrusion, in view
That no worth claims my book
Save the greeting it brings you.'
Anybody could easily place this sort of verse without a date, for at
that time, in the eighties, experiments in French forms were
notoriously in fashion. In 'Love Lyrics,' in clear, incisive text one
reads: 'For Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton these humble lines--herein
gathered by another than the author's hand--so doubly poor an exchange
for her volume of real poetry entitled "At the Wind's Will." With all
hale greetings of your ever grateful friend, James Whitcomb Riley.
Christmas of 1899.
"'_At the Wind's Will!_--So sail these songs of thine
Into the haven of hearts--the world's and mine--
While anchoring-chant of crew and pilot saith:
The Wind's will--yea, the will of God's own breath.'
"In 'The World Beautiful' was inscribed: 'To Mrs. Louise Chandler
Moulton, whose graciousness and charm create a World Beautiful
wherever she goes, this little book is offered, with grateful love.'
Dr. Holmes' inscription is a copy of his well-known stanza: 'And if I
should live to be.' Edmund Clarence Stedman inscribes his 'Poems': 'To
my loyal, lifelong friend, Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet, with love
and homage. E.C. Stedman, Thanksgiving, 1897.
"'The Power that arches heaven's orbway round
Gave to this planet's brood its soul of fire;
Its heart of passion,--and for life unbound
By chain or creed the measureless desire.--p. 126.'
"The 'American Anthology' three years later has: 'To my life-long,
loyalest woman friend--my sister in life and song--Louise Chandler
Moulton. Meet whom we may, no others comprehend save those who
breathed the same air and drank the same waters when we trod the
sunrise fields of Youth.' In 'The Poet's Chronicle,' privately printed
in an edition of forty-four copies on Van Gelder paper, is written:
'My old friend, Louise Chandler Moulton, this piece not aimed at the
public. Frederick Wedmore, 3rd July, 1902.' 'Heartsease and Rue' Mr.
Lowell presents 'to Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton with the kind regards
of the author, who wishes her all heartsease and no rue.' In this
volume, as in a number of others, a signed letter is inserted, either
one which accompanied the gift in the first place or which replied to
the acknowledgment of the recipient. 'Astrophel and Other Poems' is
sent 'To Mrs. Moulton from A.C. Swinburne in memoriam Philip Bourke
Marston.'
"Among the Marston books are many of interest, but of them I have
space to mention only two. One is a copy of 'Ecce Homo,' to 'Philip
Bourke Marston from his godmother, D.M.C., Aug. 13, 1866.' Dinah
Mulock Craik's poem to her godson, 'Philip, my King,' is well known,
and is alluded to in one of the inscriptions which I have already
quoted. Mr. Marston's godfather, Philip James Bailey, bestowed upon
him a copy of 'Festus,' with the inscription: '_Ce livre donné
affectueusement par l'auteur à son cher filleul Philippe Bourke
Marston, qui a déjà par son propre genie étendue la renommée
patronymique, est accompagné des voeux les plus sincères pour la santé
et pour son bonheur._' Just why French should be used in this
connection is not evident, and perhaps I am not justified in feeling
that 'Festus' Bailey was perhaps not without a secret pride in being
able to achieve an inscription in that language. Be that as it may,
however, the sentiment expressed is a graceful one, not ungracefully
put. The third volume is a copy of Swinburne's 'A Song of Italy.' In
it is this note: 'This copy was read by Mr. Swinburne, on March 30th,
1867, to Mr. Mazzini, and has been in the hand of the great Italian to
whom it is dedicated. Presented to Philip Bourke Marston by Thomas
Purnell, 12 April, 1867.'
"I have already much exceeded the limits within which in beginning
this paper I meant to end. I have therefore no space in which to speak
of the first and limited editions or of the privately printed books
which add to the value of the collection. It is to me a source of much
satisfaction that this fine and dignified memorial to Mrs. Moulton
should be in the Public Library of Boston. The book-plate by Sidney L.
Smith contains her portrait, and a catalogue of the books has been
printed. Mrs. Moulton's work is her monument, but this will be an
appropriate and fitting recognition of her place in American letters
and in the gracious company of New England's poets."
* * * * *
The autograph letters left by Mrs. Moulton, the greater number written
to her personally but some which were well-nigh priceless (like the
original of the famous letter in which Mrs. Browning stated her view
of spiritualism) from the bequest of Mr. Marston, were carefully
assorted, and by her daughter given to the Congressional Library at
Washington. To them was added the large number of autographed
photographs which Mrs. Moulton had received as gifts from famous or
distinguished persons.
* * * * *
The place of Louise Chandler Moulton as a writer is assured. The words
of the _London Athenæum_ in its memorial notice may be said to sum up
the matter with entire justice when it said that her work "entitles
her to her recognized position as the first poet, among women," in
America, from the fact that her verse possesses "delicate and rare
beauty, marked originality, and, what was better still, ... a sense of
vivid and subtle imagination, and that spontaneous feeling which is
the essence of lyrical poetry." Her mastery of the sonnet-form has
been commented upon in the words of critics of authority a number of
times already in this volume, and neither this nor her wonderful
instinct for metrical effect need be dwelt upon here. That she has
left her place in American letters unfilled, and that no successor is
in evidence will hardly be disputed. Few writers of equal eminence
have so completely escaped from all trace of mannerism, for unless a
tendency to melancholy might be so classed her poetry is unusually
free from this fault. The imaginative spontaneity of her verse made
it impossible for artificiality to intrude; and even the sadness never
seems forced or affected. The beauty of feeling and the exquisite
melody of her verse have in them the savor of immortality.
To her friends the remembrance of her genius for friendship,--for it
amounted to that,--her wonderful and unworldly kindness which
overflowed in all her acts, the sympathy which no demands could
exhaust, must seem hardly less a title to continued remembrance than
her poetic powers. Her life was singularly complete, singularly
fortunate, in its conditions. It was a life enriched with genius,
friendship, and love, and above all it was the life of one whose
nature was golden throughout with the appreciation of beauty and the
instinctive generosity which gave as freely as it had received.
She had entered into the larger life where
No work begun shall ever pause for death,
and where all the nobler energies of the spirit shall enter into
eternal beauty.
[Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected
without note, and illustrations have been moved to the nearest
paragraph break.]
End of Project Gutenberg's Louise Chandler Moulton, by Lilian Whiting